Oscar hopefuls to clash in December box-office battle
Two Chinese-language films - one selected to represent mainland China and the other to represent Hong Kong at next year's Oscars - will go head-to-head at the box office this Christmas.
The Promise, by renowned mainland director Chen Kaige, will open in Hong Kong on December 15, a week after Hong Kong director Peter Chan Ho-sun's Perhaps Love.
'I'm happy to see that my film, The Promise, is being shown during Christmas. But my major concern is the performance in our home market,' Chen said at yesterday's press conference in Hunghom.
Chan's US$10 million movie - labelled the first Chinese-language musical since the 1960s - closed the Venice Film Festival in September. It features a pan-Asian cast, including Jacky Cheung Hok-yau, Takeshi Kaneshiro, Zhou Xun and Ji Jin-hee. 'The Oscars are just a big party ... not our ultimate goal. I've won the Palme d'Or [Cannes' top prize] already. I'm not stressed out at all,' Chan said.
The Promise, which cost $340 million, features an international cast, including Japan's Hiroyuki Sanada (The Last Samurai) and South Korea's Jang Dong-gun (Taegukgi hwinalrimyeo), who are after a beautiful-yet-cursed princess played by Cecilia Cheung Pak-chi.
The film was also supported by Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon's Oscar-winning crew, including cinematographer Peter Pau Tak-hei and art director Tim Yip Kam-tim.
A mobile phone version of a computer game based on The Promise will be released on December 15, when the film opens.
